Indian Ocean Tsunami, 2004

Brief Overview of the Disaster by Countries
On 26 Dec 2004, 00:58:53 UTC (7:58:53 am local time), a magnitude 9.0 earthquake occurred off the west coast of northern Sumatra, Indonesia. The epi-centre was located under sea water at 3.32 N 95.85 E. This is the fourth largest earthquake in the world since 1900. The earthquake generated tsunamis which swept across the Indian Ocean within hours. Which affected 12 countries and took 186,983 lives. Hundreds of thousands of persons were displaced and over 3 million persons were affected, half of whom lost their sources of livelihood. The tsunami had the greatest impact on rural coastal communities, many of which were already poor and vulnerable and had few livelihood options. The hardest-hit and most severely affected countries were India, Indonesia, Maldives, Sri Lanka and Thailand. Malaysia, Myanmar, Seychelles, Somalia and the United Republic of Tanzania were also affected.